2/20/07 PM

9:20 PM: I didn't exactly post an update when we got home, as promised, but everything did go well. Her counts are great, and the doctors thought she looked good. Tuesday is always a busy day at the clinic because it's the only day they do sedation, so we went pretty late (arrived just before 10:00). We saw one of our favorite doctors (Don Coulter), and he said after the blood test, we could just go home and they would call us with the results (instead of waiting). He went over the the hospital then for the rest of his day.

We waited, and I noticed that several people who had come in after us were having their blood draws done. One of the nurses asked if she had cream on (which she did--we always apply the numbing cream before leaving home). A while later, the nurse came over and said they didn't actually have any orders to do a blood draw and asked whether Dr. Coulter had mentioned doing a blood draw. He definitely had intended that we do one, so he had to come back over and submit the paperwork (accompanied by lots of apologies).

Just before 1:00 they called her in. She was totally ready. She was so ready, she said she didn't need to take her blankie into the room. For those of you who know Sophie, you'll know that Sophie without her blankie is a rare event. As Mary checked her veins to decide which hand to use, Sophie said she could feel Mary's touch. It seemed like after 5 hours, the cream had started to wear off. We went ahead, and she was fine when the needle went in. The blood didn't come out right away, so Mary had to do some repositioning of the needle while it was inserted. Sophie stayed totally still, but she did whimper a little bit. Before we knew it, the blood started flowing, and we were done. Sophie picked out a little toy care for her treat, and we left. On the way home, we called Grammy. Sophie said "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I held totally still. The bad news is that it hurt." But she was excited about only having to suffer one poke. When her Daddy got home, she told him that it hurt when Mary "got near the vein" (that's what Mary had said after she was done--that what seems to hurt is not piercing the skin but getting the vein). I actually thought the problem wasn't the vein but that either we had waited too long between applying the cream and doing the blood draw or that it had thinned out too much under the Glad Press-and-Seal we had used to hold it in place.

Sophie goes back to day care tomorrow, and we're all doing fine. Sophie goes back for chemo in a week on Tuesday. Four more treatments to go!